Chiro going back to school

Greetings to all. I am new on the forum and would really appreciate some input to the following. I am a 39 year old Md/DO prospective student. I am currently studying for the MCAT and will be taking it in July this year. I am a practicing Chiropractor and have been out of school for eight years. Gpa for my doctorate was around a 3.2 with undergrad scores (11 years ago) were higher being around a 3.5. Does anyone have an opinion on how already having a health care doctorate, passing 4 national exams and a state exam and eight years clinical work will play with the selection committee? i am honestly worried that having only four months to study for the mcats after all these years may lead to a less than ideal score. thoughts on DO vs MD? I realize that philosophically speaking, DO may be a better choice, but the schools are farther away and i do have a family here in the area. any insight to my situation would be greatly appreciated. I have read through some posts and they all seem to be helpful and well thought out.


thank you

Welcome to OPM! … Here is my two cents … (And you will get a lot on here) you sound like a good candidate for a DO school, MD might be out of reach with your GPA but it can’t hurt to try. With your GPA going from a 3.5 to a 3.2 does not look the best. From what I understand, they (Adcom) want to see the trend to go up, not down, ie. 3.2 to 3.5. A high MCAT could offset your GPA.


One thing for sure … I would not rush the MCAT unless you can spend the next 3 months totally committed to studying it. I would take a Kaplan/Princeton class as a course refresher and as many practice tests as possible.


Cheer!


Thomas

Thank you Thomas for the welcome and the advice. I do have the opportunity to study quite a bit for the next 3 1/2 months. I am putting in about 5 hours a day after office hours and have loaded up with all the study guides. Point taken on the gpa. I will of course shoot for the highest mcat I can. I have talked to one dean of admissions and she did say that the gpa is taken in context with the program attended. The feeling I got from her was that a 3.2 is looked at favorably considering the course load of 32-38 credits per semester for my graduate work. Thank you again and please, any body else chime in.

Poster Jaysun0373 is a chiropractor on faculty who is applying to medical school right now. As I remember, he also won a HPSP scholarship. He and his past postings should be of some help.

thank you as well. Any one else’s thoughts?

I recently brought up the question of older prerequisites at the aacom meeting and there are no standard across schools or across candidates for that matter. It was suggested by the admissions officers that you potential applicants should discuss this with the specific schools that they are considering.

It is interesting to find this post today, as I just got my first acceptance call today, and I wanted to share it with everyone who has been so supportive.


Dr. Driddle, my story is similar to yours, background and GPA wise. I have been in practice for seven years and a professor for five.


I studied for a few hours each night for about two months and scored a 32 on the MCAT (10PS,13VR,9BS) I applied to twenty schools (15 MD and 5 DO) and received 5 interviews, 2 MD and 3 DO. I received my first acceptance to a D.O. program today.


I would be happy to provide any assistance I can regarding the application process.


Nova Southeastern, ATSU, and UNECOM will give some credit for our previous education, in terms of classes taken, but in not length of program.



Many, Many, Congrats!


BTW, in addition to accepting older previous, UNECOM also has a fully online postbacc and would seem likely to be more accepting of online courses than other schools. I am trying to find further info from some professors in UNECOM online program to see what other schools have accepted their program.

Jayson0373


CONGRATULATIONS!! If there was anything i needed tonight for motivation, it was to find out you got accepted. My wife and I have been reading through all of your post and she just called me (I’m studying at the office) to tell me. I would love to talk to you and pick your brain about a few things. You are more than welcome to email me at drdriddle@aol.com Thank you for the insight to those schools, i will definately look into it.